A basic ordinary broom, for example, is a machine. It's a type of lever. The more complicated brooms are called "mechanical" because they use gears and levers to sweep. These more advanced brooms are used by professionals.
The word "machine" comes from Latin mola, meaning "hammer." So, a machine is anything that uses gravity and springs to create force or movement. This includes clocks, cars, and even toilets!
Brooms are machines because they use levers and wheels to produce force using gravity as energy. They also use brushes or wires to collect dust or debris. Finally, they can be electric or hand-powered.
There are many different types of brooms, including brush brooms, feather duster brooms, wire whisks, and slat brooms. Each one works off the same basic principles of leverage and friction.
Brush brooms are the simplest type of broom. They consist of a bundle of bristles attached to a handle. You push the brush back and forth over your floor to get rid of dust and dirt.
Feather duster brooms have long, flexible feathers at the end of the handle.
At other instances, basic machines are obvious: a door, for example, contains hinges (which act as levers) and a door knob (a wheel-and-axle). Such devices require no further explanation.
A more advanced type of mechanical device is the automatic window. These windows slide up and down inside their frames which hang on the wall or sit on a vehicle's bodywork. They are activated by wires or cables connected to one of the frame's corners. Tension from these wires causes the window to go up or down. Automatic windows were first manufactured in the early 1900s and have been improving ever since. Today's models can be raised or lowered at any speed below that which will cause damage to the mechanism.
The most common type of simple machine today is the refrigerator/freezer. Refrigerators use thermodynamics to transfer heat away from the environment and into an array of metals called "refrigeration coils" that make up the core of the unit. Freezers do the opposite - they absorb heat from their internal metal components and expel it into its surrounding environment.
Refrigerator doors are usually made out of aluminum because they're lightweight and inexpensive to manufacture. They may also be coated with plastic or another material to prevent moisture from building up inside the cabinet and causing corrosion.
The fulcrum of a broom stick is the broom handle at the top. The input effort is when we push the handle from somewhere in the center, and the output load is when the bristles at the end of the broomstick sweep dust from the floor. As a result, a broomstick is a class 3 lever. See Figure 1-1 for how this works.
The center of gravity of a broom is right where you would expect it to be - in the middle - which means that if you want the broom to clean something flat, like a table, you'll need to put some weight in the head to make it stand up straight. If you don't, it will keep spreading its weight out over a larger area, which makes it harder to keep its balance and lead to it falling over. A heavy object on top of a broomstick will prevent it from being used as a lever, so be careful not to throw things off the back of a wheelchair!
Brooms were first made from wood, but now they are often made from plastic or metal. This changes how they are used - if you try to use a plastic broom to sweep dirt off your kitchen floor, it won't work because the bristles won't have enough force behind them to get the job done. But a metal broom can be used on any surface because its sharp corners and edges cut through the dirt.
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